Coraline Still Remembers
by IndigoStarshine
Summary: With the Other Mother gone, Coraline is left in peace to live as an ordinary human being. Time passes and she is now almost an adult, ready to leave the small Queen Anne house that she live in with her parents. Will she confront the Other Mother again?


_A/N: This is based on the book - NOT the movie._

* * *

After she had finished packing up the last of her things, Coraline spent some time saying goodbye to the house that had been her home for almost ten years. She and her parents were moving out of the Queen Anne style house and back to London so her Dad could advance in his career and she could go to her preferred university.

Coraline was not a child anymore but in her late teens, almost an adult, and a lot had changed during the years that she had called the place home. The black cat that had been her friend long ago had gone away. Miss Spink, Miss Forcible and Mr Bobo had moved into nursing homes two years ago, leaving their flats to be taken by other tenants with young children. She missed them terribly along with Mr Bobo's mice, which really were just as amazing as Mr Bobo described them. Just recently, she had graduated from high school and decided to study chemistry at the University of London.

She looked around expecting to reminisce about old experiences but she didn't, she just felt a compelling feeling that she needed to leave the house once and for all. As she walked through the rooms the feeling became stronger and stronger.

Coraline took the rock with a hole in it out of her pocket and held it in her hand. It was surprising that she had kept it after all these years. She was torn between leaving it here in case it would be needed and taking it with her for safe keeping. It shouldn't have really mattered; it was supposed to be just a rock.

As she had walked through the flat for the last time, each step inevitably brought her closer to the drawing room which contained the dreaded locked door that had been bricked up. Coraline hadn't been in there for about eight years or so, ever since she glued the door permanently shut with super glue.

She didn't like to think that the other mother was actually real. She had previously told herself that no such thing could possibly exist. It was all a horrific hallucination. It was simply ludicrous to think otherwise. As someone with a scientific and logical mind, she hated to consider the existence of the supernatural.

…But something deep within her said otherwise. She still occasionally had nightmares even years later. These dreams would usually include button eyes, the rats, her parents trapped in a snowglobe and severed hands looking for keys. The old ladies who had given her the special stone would also occasionally ask her what had happened, but she would deny anything. She would never share what she had experienced with another being.

Ever.

Coraline was starting to feel silly about just standing outside the drawing room door. Her heart was beating a million miles an hour; it felt like the reminiscent evil was knocking on the front door of her soul, just wanting to be let in.

'_This is the last chance I have of confronting my fear_,' she reassured herself, _'it's either now or never.'_

Slowly, but surely, Coraline coaxed herself into turning the door knob and walking into the room. It was just like it always was. The only difference was that her parents had reapplied wall paper over the other mother's door to keep it covered. They had no recollection of the incident and just believed the door was pointless.

From the window she could see where the old well, which she had dropped the key into, use to be; now there was just a cement brick. When the neighbours moved in with their young children, the well was seen as dangerous and had to be destroyed. She was just glad that they simply poured the cement in without disturbing the content. It felt like a relief when they decided to do that.

Then she heard it, it was definitely coming from the door.

Knock, knock, knock!

Knock, knock, knock!

Knock, knock, knock!

She felt like her heart was going to give way in shock. Coraline didn't hesitate to run out the door and threw the rock into the room in the process.

She spent a good half hour sitting on the front step of the flat beside her box filled with remaining belongings. She supposed that there really were things in this world that were yet to be explained. She hoped that she wasn't the only one to have experienced such things.

When her only, true mother came to pick her up she commented on how pale Coraline was.

"I'm fine, Mum. I'm just cold."

She placed the box in the boot of the car and didn't look back. Coraline never wanted to see the house again.


End file.
